Jimmy Evert Tennis Center at Holiday Park: Upgrades & Booking

Bobby Blair, a former top junior, collegiate, and professional tennis player, told OUTSFL about Holiday Park's courts: "Every time I visited my grandmother on NE 6th Avenue as a kid, I came here to play."

If you live in Victoria Park, you've probably walked past those same courts a hundred times without thinking much about them. The Jimmy Evert Tennis Center spent ten months behind construction fencing before reopening in fall 2025, reshaped by a $9.5 million renovation that turned a well-worn municipal facility into something closer to a stage.

Holiday Park sits at 701 NE 12th Avenue, a 90-acre city park that has long served as the neighborhood's main recreational ground, the place residents default to for green space, playgrounds, and courts when the neighborhood's own small namesake park on Victoria Park Road isn't big enough for what they have in mind. The tennis complex inside it has changed from a place you could show up and hit a bucket of balls to a facility with an online booking system, a stadium court named for a Grand Slam champion, and a December date with the best 16-and-under and 18-and-under players in the world.

What Ten Months of Fencing Actually Bought

The work started January 6, 2025, with an expected ten-month timeline and a fall 2025 reopening. It landed on schedule. The centerpiece is a set of sub-irrigation courts, now the industry standard at premier tennis facilities, along with resurfaced competition courts, expanded seating, improved lighting, and modern locker rooms. The money behind it split two ways: a $1.5 million Legacy Gift from the Orange Bowl Committee and roughly $8 million from the City of Fort Lauderdale, for a combined $9.5 million investment.

The ribbon-cutting in November 2025 also gave the complex a new landmark: the Chris Evert Stadium Court, dedicated inside the facility that already carried her father's name. Jimmy Evert served as the city's teaching tennis professional for 49 years before retiring in 1997, and the courts were renamed in his honor at that point. His daughter, an 18-time Grand Slam champion, grew up training on them. Mayor Dean Trantalis spoke at the dedication about the park's role as a gathering place across generations, which is a fair description of what a public tennis center is supposed to do when it works.

The Booking System Nobody Used to Need

If you played here before the renovation, you probably don't remember reserving anything. That's changed. The city's parks department describes the reopening as coming with an online court reservation system and an expanded lineup of clinics and programs for players four and up, across skill levels. For a neighborhood that treated these courts as a walk-up amenity for decades, that's a genuine shift in how you plan a Tuesday afternoon game. Check the city's tennis program page before you head over, especially if you're used to the old routine of just showing up with a racquet.

December Turns the Park Into a World Stage

The renovation's stated purpose wasn't just cosmetic. The primary outcome of the partnership between the Orange Bowl, the city, and the USTA was relocating the Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships to the rebuilt Jimmy Evert Tennis Center. This is not a new event dreamed up for a ribbon-cutting. Established in 1947 in Miami Beach, it's one of only five tournaments worldwide rated ITF Grade A. It ran at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne from 1999 to 2010, then moved to the Frank Veltri Tennis Center in Plantation starting in 2011. Now its 16s and 18s draws have a new home two blocks from Victoria Park's interior streets.

The tournament holds its second run at the renovated venue this December. For the 18-and-under draw, qualifying runs December 6 and 7, singles main draw runs December 8 through 14, and doubles main draw runs December 9 through 14. Match play centers on the Chris Evert Stadium Court, and it's open to watch without a ticket.

What's less obvious, and useful if you actually want to catch players before match day, is that practice happens somewhere else entirely. The tournament disperses its practice courts across several venues around the county:

• George English Park at 1101 Bayview Drive, with free public hitting hours from noon to 7 p.m. daily, plus three additional courts opening from 10:30 a.m. to noon starting midweek
• Lighthouse Point Tennis Center and Coral Ridge Country Club, with shuttle transportation running from the Courtyard Marriott Downtown Fort Lauderdale
• The Frank Veltri Tennis Center in Plantation, available for $10 per person with no transportation provided

If you're picturing a quiet morning watching a future Grand Slam contender warm up on the court next to Holiday Park's playground, that's not quite how it works. The stadium court is for matches. Practice lives at George English and beyond.

What This Changes for a Regular Week

For residents who just want their usual court time, the practical read is simple. Book ahead now that the reservation system exists, since walk-up play is no longer the default the way it might have been before the renovation. During the December tournament week, expect the Chris Evert Stadium Court and the immediate Holiday Park complex to be occupied by match play rather than open for casual booking, with George English Park serving as the public alternative during those free hitting-hour windows.

None of this changes what Holiday Park has always been for Victoria Park: the place you go for green space, for a run, for a court when you want one. What's different is that the courts themselves now carry both a modern reservation system and a tournament pedigree that puts them in the same conversation as venues that trained a Grand Slam champion in the first place. You can look up the full history of the tournament's relocation and funding directly from the Orange Bowl Committee, and the tournament's own logistics page has the practice court details if you want to catch a session before December.

If Holiday Park's tennis revival has you thinking about what else is shifting in the neighborhood this year, Glen Primak tracks these changes block by block and is glad to talk through what's new around Victoria Park.